Saturday, April 30, 2011

This Sunday, May 1st at 7:30 p.m. EST, 4:30 PT, I will be the guest on "Ithaca Now" with Emily Miles for a half hour, recorded interview about Glenn Beck. You can hear this station online at www.wicb.org, and then click on "Listen Live" to hear the broadcast.

Those of you who have a friend, relative, neighbor or associate, who is a fan of Glenn Beck, have an opportunity to have them hear a case made that Beck is a liar and a hypocrite. Fox and the right-wing media's roll in creating an alternative understanding of the world will also be discussed. He's still on Fox, and he's still presenting a purposely distorted story about everything. Stopping Beck also means exposing him as the liar, hypocrite and fraud that he is to those who somehow believe that he's honest, principled and sincere. Help me help America. Please share this date, time and URL: www.wicb.org, May 1, 7:30 p.m. Thank you.

Friday, April 29, 2011

On the day this week that President Obama released his "long form" birth certificate, the title of Glenn Beck's newsletter that day was "Obama releases birth certificate -- VIEW IT." The picture of Obama's birth certificate on Glenn Beck dot com conveyed much more about Glenn Beck than it does about the President.

Inside the newsletter and next to an advertisement for birther, DonaldTrump, the author wrote:

President Obama held a brief press conference this morning to address the ongoing (and completely ridiculous) birther issue. The White House released hisoriginal birth certificateand Obama followed that up by stating what most Americans already knew - that he was born in Hawaii. Obama said the nation has bigger, more important issues to talk about, saying he was 'puzzled and amused' that 'sideshows and carnival barkers' keep getting dragged on and on and on. He said America doesn't have time for this 'silliness' and it's time to move on. But will the hardcore birther crowd be satisfied? In a word: NO. Glenn, Stu and Pat reveal how the birther claims will be taken to the next levelon radio today. PLUS: The birth certificate the President doesn't want Americans to see: LOOK

Under the SCREAMING headline "BIRTH CERTIFICATE!!! (Media won't show this one!!)" and without any further comment Glenn Beck published this on his website:

Why would Beck publish this? That image certainly is taking birther claims to another level, but it's not the next level so much as it is the most base and despicable level of media propaganda. Aside from the Islamophobic addition of "666 Muslim St" to an empty space on the document, what is Beck, a supposedly anti-birther, someone who claims that birtherism is dumb and for flat-Earthers, trying to accomplish by posting this on his website with this modified version of the President's birth certificate?

Is Beck pandering to the racists in his flock? Is this a joke from a rodeo clown? It is linked to under the line "The birth certificate the President doesn't want Americans to see," which means what?

leader of men?

On the day that the President wants to divert attention from the "carnival barkers" and get the focus back upon the serious problem faced by the U.S., this carnival barker chooses to push the envelope of absurdity and controversy. It's been argued that Beck creates controversy as a marketing mechanism. Controversy gets media coverage which leads to more attention being paid to Glenn Beck, which leads the most reactionary elements (racists, anti-government zealots, Obama haters, etc.) to start listening to his yellow propaganda and then become followers, members of his flock, and that leads to greater ratings for his shows, greater book sales and greater income. Beck creates controversy which he sells like snake oil, and this is just another example. Beck is a rabble rouser, and in this case he is appealing to the least-adult-like Americans.

By publishing this childishly modified image under screaming headlines, Beck is showing the world that he is not a leader of men, that Beck is not a serious commentator, not a "thinker," and that Beck appeals to the most immature Americans who already hate this President as well as racists who don't believe that Obama is the legitimate President of the United States. Beck is an entertainer, a gifted carnival barker, a rodeo clown and not a leader of adults. He should be ignored by the media and serious adults of all political orientations, even serious libertarians. Beck is a bad joke, a stain upon the American political discourse and gifted salesman of false narratives. That his flock cannot see through their hero's foolishness, many hypocrisies and deceptions is a sad statement about the dearth of critical thinking that is developed in the secondary schools in this country. Beck's followers are not serious adults, but they are people who stopped maturing at an early age.

Wednesday, April 27, 2011

Glenn Beck is still ranting about a speech from Stephen Lerner, an ex-union official that conveyed a strategy to force banks to lower mortgage payments for people struggling to stay in their homes. Previously the hypocrisy of Beck's concern was addressed here. Lerner's strategy is reprinted here with permission. Last night, commentator Lawrence O'Donnell explained why the FBI is ignoring Beck's phone calls on his MSNBC show, The Last Word.

The FBI is ignoring Beck because he is an ignorantblowhard. More often than not, he doesn't know what he's ranting about. That makes at least three good reasons why Beck should be ignored by all reasonable people of any political orientation: radical, liberal, conservative or reactionary (libertarian). The second reason is that Beck is a hypocrite as previously mentioned here, but that example was the 19th of 22 examples of hypocrisy on Glenn Beck's part documented on this Review during the course of the last year!

America's hypocrite-in-chief

The third reason was the impetus behind the genesis of this Review. Glenn Beck lies. We have demonstrated this conclusively here, here, here and even conservatives have called Beck out for a lie about how he came up with his new slogan, "Truth has no agenda." That's right; Beck liedabout his new truth slogan!As covered in The Daily Caller:

In February of this year, Beck announced on the radio that he had created a new motto for his website, The Blaze. “This is the slogan that I wrote for The Blaze,” Beck said. “We’ve put it up everywhere here and we’ve written it out for The Blaze. And it is: ‘The truth has no agenda.’”

So who listens to and follows a liar, a hypocrite and an ignorant blowhard? Sadly, Beck has millions of followers who are convinced by Beck's gift for propaganda. One of the elements of this propaganda is to repeat a lie over and over and over until listeners believe it, and the biggest lie Beck tells his gullible flock is that he tells the truth. Just as friends don't let friends drive drunk, don't let your friends, relatives and others on your e-mail and Facebook lists of friends tune into Beck without first warning them about the real Beck: dishonest and ignorant blowhard with a knack for demonstrating hypocrisy. Please, share this URL about Glenn Beck: sharethisurlaboutglennbeck.com. Just because he's leaving his Fox stage later this year doesn't mean that he will no longer be a threat to people's understanding about our world.

Monday, April 25, 2011

Reactionary Ann Coulter used to employ a method of making more and more outrageous and absurd statements about the left, always trying to outdo herself and becoming a self-parody in the process. Last week News Corp, parent company of the Fox propaganda channel, announced that last Friday would be the beginning of Glenn Beck's "final chapter." Employing his trademark paranoid style, Beck is claiming that Obama is the "first" American emperor; and "they" are prepared to "kill 25 million Americans." This is a continuation of Glenn Beck going the extra yard to garner media attention which in the past has lead to more viewers, better ratings, more followers, more book sales and more money for Glenn Beck. Last February, his hysterical rantings about the Egyptian uprising also got the attention of mainstream, adult conservatives, who may have pressured Fox president, Roger Ailes, into transitioning Beck off his 5:00 slot before he did more damage to the conservative cause.

Beck has made the false claim that Obama is the first American emperor in the past, and the bogus claim been debunked here because it was a senior George Bush advisor who declared to the political scientists that "we're an empire now." Apparently Beck counts upon his audience not being well informed which they are if they watch Fox. To Beck's audience, none of this is absurd; and that is disconcerting. To consider that millions of Americans are taken in by the idiocy of Beck's retro-John Birch Society shtick is sad and disheartening.

The "Final Chapter" of Glenn Beck's Fox News run kicked off Friday with Beck warning that a plot to "collapse the system," "redistribute the wealth," and create an Obama-centered empire was based on a willingness to kill "25 million Americans."

Fox News announced weeks ago that Beck "intends to transition off his daily program" on Fox News. Earlier this week, News Corp. announced that the "Final Chapter" of Beck's Fox News show would begin Friday.

That chapter of the Glenn Beck saga began with Beck claiming that he is leaving Fox to transition from "preaching to the choir" into getting "involved" in stopping the "nefarious plans" of progressives.

Beck warned his audience of the dangers posed by the "true revolutionaries" on his chalkboard, who support communism and the "redistribution of wealth," and by "people like George Soros" who want to "collapse the system." ,,, This is not atypical -- in fact it is a hallmark of Beck's show to suggest violence is originating from "the left" and to then beg his audience to resist.

After all, when Beck tearfully announced his 9-12 Project, he told his Fox News audience, "They don't surround us; we surround them." Months later, he amped up the paranoia, proclaiming, "Shoot me in the head if you try to change our government -- I will stand against you, and so will millions of others."

[...]

At one point Friday night, Beck said that it was "getting boring" to demonize the "same people," raising the question as to just how much longer this transition will be supported by Fox News.

So long as this transition continues we will continue to watch with awe and dismay the theater of the absurd known as the Glenn Beck show on the Fox propaganda channel. Sadly, the damage Beck is doing to the political discourse in the United States will take a generation to fix. Even then, stupid people will still believe the stupid and deceitful claims that Beck has spouted over the last 27 months. Beck is not a stupid man, but many of the ideas his followers swallow are dumb, absurd and dangerous for our political order. Beck's departure from Fox cannot come soon enough. That Beck was allowed to spout his nonsense and purposely and deceitfully divide the people of the United States during two wars and an economic recession is an indictment of Fox, a channel of misinformation, lies and right-wing propaganda.

Besides Chris Rodda, author of Liars for Jesus, there are others who have expressed criticism of Mr. Barton. From Barton's Wikipedia page are these critiques:

Rob Boston of Americans United for Separation of Church and State has been critical, stating

The Religious Right's leading practitioner of this type of historical revisionism is David Barton ... Barton makes a lucrative living traveling the right wing's lecture circuit where he offers up a cut-and-paste version of U.S. history liberally sprinkled with gross distortions and, in some cases, outright factual errors. Crowds of fundamentalist Christians from coast to coast can't get enough of it.[1]

Rev. Randolph Bracy, president of the Orange County, Florida chapter of the NAACP has referred to Barton as a "Holocaust-denier, an anti-Semite and someone who has called for the death penalty for gay and lesbian people", stating that Barton has "a long history of being related to the worst fringes of our society."[1]

Update, 7/29/2011: Another excellent piece entitled "Barton's Bunk" can be found on the website of People for the American Way. It is a rather exhaustive review of him with the following conclusion:

David Barton is in many ways emblematic of politics in Fox News - Tea Party America, in which facts are distorted in service of a right-wing ideological agenda, and in which political opponents are denigrated as enemies of faith and freedom. Barton’s work has repeatedly been debunked by historians and scholars, yet conservative political leaders and pundits continue to promote his manipulations in order to help Republicans get elected and in order to advance the Religious Right’s – and now the Tea Party’s – political agenda. It is urgently important for scholars, public officials, and responsible media outlets to vigorously challenge efforts by Barton, his supporters, and the movements they represent to miseducate current and future generations of Americans on the Constitution and the abiding American values of religious liberty, equal opportunity, and equality under the law.

Friday, April 22, 2011

In a story on Glenn Beck's website entitled "Biggest flip flop yet!" Beck argues that President Obama "promised" to not add a signing statement to a bill, which the President did on April 15th to the resolution that funds the government through September to avoid a government shutdown. The signing statement allowed the government to continue to pay "czars" overseeing healthcare, climate change, urban affairs and the auto industry.(1) First of all, the President made clear in 2007 that he would use signing statements "to protect the president's constitutional prerogatives," but more important, Glenn Beck is not opposed to flip flopping when he is the one doing the 180 on policy positions as he did with the no fly zone over Libya recently.

This is the video presented on Beck's story about the supposed "flip flop:"

So did Obama flip flop as Beck and his headline writer argue? It is not clear why Stu Burguiere had to use a secondary source because the Obama interview with Charlie Savage in The Boston Globe in 2007 was easy to locate. Savage addressed this issue directly:

Savage: Under what circumstances, if any, would you sign a bill into law but also issue a signing statement reserving a constitutional right to bypass the law?

Obama:Signing statements have been used by presidents of both parties, dating back to Andrew Jackson. While it is legitimate for a president to issue a signing statement to clarify his understanding of ambiguous provisions of statutes and to explain his view of how he intends to faithfully execute the law, it is a clear abuse of power to use such statements as a license to evade laws that the president does not like or as an end-run around provisions designed to foster accountability.

I will not use signing statements to nullify or undermine congressional instructions as enacted into law. The problem with this administration is that it has attached signing statements to legislation in an effort to change the meaning of the legislation, to avoid enforcing certain provisions of the legislation that the President does not like, and to raise implausible or dubious constitutional objections to the legislation. The fact that President Bush has issued signing statements to challenge over 1100 laws – more than any president in history – is a clear abuse of this prerogative. No one doubts that it is appropriate to use signing statements to protect a president's constitutional prerogatives; unfortunately, the Bush Administration has gone much further than that.

It's clear that Obama did not "promise" to not ever use signing statements as Beck deceitfully conveyed. But is Glenn Beck so opposed to flip-flopping that he would never do it himself?

In a year of careful and critical scrutiny of Beck's commentary and yellow propaganda, multiple examples of hypocrisy on Beck's part have been documented. This is the 22nd example of hypocrisy on Beck's part documented to date. (See example 21 here which links to the other 20 examples of hypocrisy documented on this Review.) Glenn Beck, who told the NY Times Magazine that he's a "principles-and-values guy," lacks one primary principle, namely the principle of sticking with his principles and not undermining his own criticisms by demonstrating the characteristic or behavior that he is criticizing. What kind of person calls himself a "principles-and-values" guy and demonstrates blatant hypocrisy on his own stated principles? One wonders if the word "charlatan" means anything to Glenn Beck. For that matter, one wonders if the word hypocrisy means anything to the millions of loyal followers who tune into Beck's radio show every week. Are they so enthralled and/or mesmerized with Beck's manipulative and gifted propaganda, that they lose all sense of what hypocrisy looks like? Millions of far-right individuals in America don't yet grasp that Glenn Beck is what hypocrisy looks like.